A list of questions

I do not want to go to a school that I would not be proud to be a graduate of. This would at the leastinclude T3/T4 schools but I am of the opinion I should after completing college that the lowerr 80% ofTier 2 shyould be excluded as well and some T1 just because I think the name sucks. Like Vanderbilt.I hate that name and no matter how respected it may be I would rather go to a sub-par tier 2 just so I could go outin public and have pride in myself. Or William and Mary. Why can't they just pick one name and stickwith it? William College or College of Mary sure... the name just irritates me. Fordham as well. Yeshiva...sounds to Jewish for my tastes. As you can see of the law schools in America, considerably more than half I would never consider...

With that being said, if we are to exclude from any serious consideration T3/T4 schools and suppose wecontinued this with T2 universities, using the USNWR ranking system at what point do we begin toseparate schools noted as "bad" from those noted as "good" given the factors which the majority of thisforum values in a school such as job prospects upon graduation, regional respect or even national respect, value of a degree from the institution, and the other many factors? For instance, a graduate of Pace finding an assistant managerposition at Radio Shack beiung an example, at what point would you place the cutoff for schools not having horror stories likethis as a somewhat common reality?

What is your opinion of the University of Kentucky? I use this as my own arbitrary cut-off at roughly rank #60.

Are there any advantages to looking at top Canadian schools? Are there benefits in the financial aid system for an American student?

Even if only being a small help, is there an advantage to go to the law school of the university you graduated from? For instance a University of New Mexico graduate going to UNM's law school?

On an unrelated note, is anyone aware of a free Windows graphing utility to plot functions on a 2Dcoordinate plane?

Wow, I'm thinking OP's trolling. I wouldnt even know where to start on the first question. If you're seriously eliminating schools from consideration over your dislike of their name, just don't go to school at all. I'd hate to see you thrown out of court for mocking a judge's name or alma mater one day, that'd just be a shame.

Wow, I'm thinking OP's trolling. I wouldnt even know where to start on the first question. If you're seriously eliminating schools from consideration over your dislike of their name, just don't go to school at all. I'd hate to see you thrown out of court for mocking a judge's name or alma mater one day, that'd just be a shame.

I just want to have pride in myself and graduate from a school that has a name I can feel good having on my degree.

Wow, I'm thinking OP's trolling. I wouldnt even know where to start on the first question. If you're seriously eliminating schools from consideration over your dislike of their name, just don't go to school at all. I'd hate to see you thrown out of court for mocking a judge's name or alma mater one day, that'd just be a shame.

I just want to have pride in myself and graduate from a school that has a name I can feel good having on my degree.

That part I get, but most people out there wont ask where you graduated from, just be impressed that you're a "lawyer". Lawyers on the other hand will care about your school based on law reputation, not lay reputation.

Now, I'll most likely end up at a local T4 (albeit for free) due to family reasons; but I've been accepted to places that I would run to in a heartbeat if I didn't have responsibilities, screw the average name recognition.

Have you seen most of the 0L posters here? MOST of them think the same way(they just use USNews as their excuse to say the EXACT same thing)

If the poster wants to know which piper most people tend to follow, I'd recommend reader their articles. Most people would go to Sheol if they published it as #1.

Agreed. I'm just a tad averse to the idea of shutting down a school (W&M in this example) based on how the name "sounds". At least the USNWR, as flawed as it is, is based on something more than tonal quality of a name.

What is your opinion of the University of Kentucky? I use this as my own arbitrary cut-off at roughly rank #60.

Are there any advantages to looking at top Canadian schools? Are there benefits in the financial aid system for an American student?

Even if only being a small help, is there an advantage to go to the law school of the university you graduated from? For instance a University of New Mexico graduate going to UNM's law school?

On an unrelated note, is anyone aware of a free Windows graphing utility to plot functions on a 2Dcoordinate plane?

What is the process for selection for Law Review?

#1. There is no rank cutoff. After the top 20-30 schools, US news gets quite wonky. Any "University of XYZ" will probably be fine. But any school can be a bad decision if it involves too much debt. Almost all the horror stories come from people who were heavily indebted AND couldn't find a job. If you have no debt and no family to support, hacking it as a solo isn't nearly as bad.

#2. Advantage: may allow you to work in Canada, can study civil law at McGill. In general, the Canadian market is much less saturated than the US market. I wouldn't recommend a Canadian school for US practice. Even the U of Toronto only places a handful of people in the US post graduation.

#3. As far as admissions, maybe a small boost. For jobs, wouldn't really matter.

#4. Law review: depends on school. Usually is based on grades, a writing competition, or some combination thereof.

#2, I know very little about Canadian law schools, but... There seem to be a lot of top Canadian students in US law schools and they tend to work in the US when they are done - leads me to guess that Canada sucks My only data point on Canadian law school quality is a visiting professor we had at HLS from Canada - he was from a top Canadian law school and had all sorts of awards and accolades for his teaching and scholarship. He turned out to be a fun guy to have lunch with and a really interesting individual but a terrible teacher and lousy scholar. If that was their best, I'd really hate to see their average.

As for UK, I rode a motorcycle past the general UK campus (don't know if the law school is on the main campus or what), it looked nice. Otherwise can't say I've ever heard of the school, good or bad.

Matlab, maple etc should plot your functions just fine - they were all the rage a decade ago. there may be better stuff (or just newer versions) now. You can also do quite a bit in excel.

Choosing the best law school to go to, unless you get into a T5 (not even T14), depends on where you want to live and practice law after you graduate. Check the firm websites from the region that you want to work in, and you will start to see some patterns. Put more weight on the firms whose attorneys all seem to be in Law Review or Order of the Coif (code word for graduated top 10%). You should get an idea from this exercise as to which law schools are well respected in your community--which is what matters the most. If you want to practice in CA, UVA is not going to give you any advantages over UCLA grads.